Creating and using Custom YUM Repos with Cobbler?

Hi all,

I'm using cobbler with Puppet and so far it's going really well using
cobbler for class management.

I've run into an issue whereby I need to install custom RPMS on boot
using cobbler and the only way I can currently find to do this is to
setup a custom repo (using mrepo or similar) then put that as a mirror
in cobbler and let cobbler "import" the files and the repo.

Is there any way to have cobbler perform the initial creation of the
repo and then publish packages straight into the repo that is managed by
cobbler?

If that's not clear, let me know and I'll do my best to explain further!

Thanks in advance,

Matt.

[Christian Horn]

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 10:59:30AM +0100, Matt Wallace wrote:
>  
>  I've run into an issue whereby I need to install custom RPMS on boot
>  using cobbler and the only way I can currently find to do this is to
>  setup a custom repo (using mrepo or similar) then put that as a mirror
>  in cobbler and let cobbler "import" the files and the repo.
>  
>  Is there any way to have cobbler perform the initial creation of the
>  repo and then publish packages straight into the repo that is managed by
>  cobbler? 
I think you mean what i accomplish with this:


# our apache is delivering /cobbler/webroot as documentroot.

# create new repo
mkdir /cobbler/webroot/x86_64/myrpms
cp newrpm.rpm /cobbler/webroot/x86_64/myrpms
createrepo /cobbler/webroot/x86_64/myrpms

# make this repo known to cobbler
cobbler repo add --mirror=http://10.0.0.20/x86_64/myrpms \
   --name=repo-myrpms --mirror-locally=0
cobbler reposync

# supply newly deployed systems with that repo
cobbler profile edit --name=rhel5u5_serv-x86_64 \
	--repos='repo-myrpms'

# and now redeploy systems that are using 
# the profile 'rhel5u5_serv-x86_64'.




Christian

On Thu, 2010-04-29 at 12:08 +0200, Christian Horn wrote:
>  On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 10:59:30AM +0100, Matt Wallace wrote:
>  > 
>  > I've run into an issue whereby I need to install custom RPMS on boot
>  > using cobbler and the only way I can currently find to do this is to
>  > setup a custom repo (using mrepo or similar) then put that as a mirror
>  > in cobbler and let cobbler "import" the files and the repo.
>  > 
>  > Is there any way to have cobbler perform the initial creation of the
>  > repo and then publish packages straight into the repo that is managed by
>  > cobbler?
>  
>  I think you mean what i accomplish with this:
>  
>  
>  # our apache is delivering /cobbler/webroot as documentroot.
>  
>  # create new repo
>  mkdir /cobbler/webroot/x86_64/myrpms
>  cp newrpm.rpm /cobbler/webroot/x86_64/myrpms
>  createrepo /cobbler/webroot/x86_64/myrpms
>  
>  # make this repo known to cobbler
>  cobbler repo add --mirror=http://10.0.0.20/x86_64/myrpms \
>     --name=repo-myrpms --mirror-locally=0
>  cobbler reposync
>  
>  # supply newly deployed systems with that repo
>  cobbler profile edit --name=rhel5u5_serv-x86_64 \
>  	--repos='repo-myrpms'
>  
>  # and now redeploy systems that are using 
>  # the profile 'rhel5u5_serv-x86_64'. 
Yep, that's exactly what I mean! :)

I guess I was really asking if you could get cobbler to perform the
"create repo" step - do you know if this is possible?

M.

[Christian Horn]

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 11:34:02AM +0100, Matt Wallace wrote:
>  
>  I guess I was really asking if you could get cobbler to perform the
>  "create repo" step - do you know if this is possible? 
I dont think so.

I.e. when making rhel/centos-media available as repo to cobbler
the createrepo is not required, its only used to make a yum-repo
out of a pure directory with one or more rpms.

So if you really want it included write a small wrapper which
first does createrepo and then does 'cobbler repo add'.
Havin 'cobbler repo add' doing that each time on its own would
be huge waste of resources here in some cases: we have directories
with all rhel5-x86_64 updates and deliver these to cobbler-slaves
via rsync. All of these cobbler-slaves again doing the createrepo
with this big number of packages would be wasting resources..


Christian

On Thu, 2010-04-29 at 12:47 +0200, Christian Horn wrote:
>  On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 11:34:02AM +0100, Matt Wallace wrote:
>  > 
>  > I guess I was really asking if you could get cobbler to perform the
>  > "create repo" step - do you know if this is possible?
>  
>  I dont think so.
>  
>  I.e. when making rhel/centos-media available as repo to cobbler
>  the createrepo is not required, its only used to make a yum-repo
>  out of a pure directory with one or more rpms.
>  
>  So if you really want it included write a small wrapper which
>  first does createrepo and then does 'cobbler repo add'.
>  Havin 'cobbler repo add' doing that each time on its own would
>  be huge waste of resources here in some cases: we have directories
>  with all rhel5-x86_64 updates and deliver these to cobbler-slaves
>  via rsync. All of these cobbler-slaves again doing the createrepo
>  with this big number of packages would be wasting resources.. 
Fair enough, makes sense.

Thanks for all the help.

M.